Ivan the Unbearable

It’s today… in a few minutes…. Ahhhhhhh’m excited.

Above is a picture compiling the voice actors I have for my cartoon, along with the character they will be voicing. I’m so excited about it right now, I’m bouncin’ off the walls here.

For the leading role as the loveable viking, we have the magnificent Jeff Doucette who’ll bring the plucky pillager to life! Playing as his misfortunate mother, Ma, it’s the wonderfully talented Tress MacNeille! And for the part of the doomed Security Troll, it’s none other than the great Maurice LaMarche!

Wednesday should come AFTER Monday… I really can’t wait!

Ivan and the rest of the gang are just preparing for next week’s recording session, and it’s going to be a blast, for sure. After listening in on the last two recording sessions by Jeff and Kyle, I’m getting mighty excited to hear some great voice talent bring my characters to life.

Things seem to be going smoothly here at the Ivan Studio. Uh… and when I say studio, I mean my office. If you couldn’t tell, Ren� Goscinny and Albert Uderzo’s hit comic book (and animated movies), Asterix, was a large inspiration on my work for Ivan and other characters within the cartoon. I have a decent collection of Asterix comics that I keep with me here at work (although in German, I can’t read them worth anything.)

I wanted to take the moment to show this dog (which I call Bitey.) Although he doesn’t have a huge role, I like the way he turned out.

Note: Small dogs… Got biiiiiiiig teeth.

Here’s a color test for Bjorn. He’s pretty blue… But not just because the one named Ivan crossed his path.

I was just experimenting with the colors on this particular group, because not only are they my favorite looking bunch, I want to make sure they don’t look too cluttered up together. This keeps getting more and more exciting the further I get into things.

Inbetween working on Ivan the Unbearable, I can’t help but plan on possible later events starring the lighthearted Viking. When an idea pops up while drawing keyframes, I’ll just take a few minutes to sketch out the idea. Above is one of them; that’s Thor, a punk rock star for a future episode concept. Whether or not I expect further plans, I always enjoy developing thoughts for shows.

Between the several poses and expressions I’ve been drawing, I couldn’t help but do a small walk cycle on Ivan for reference. It’s been awhile since I actually animated anything. The above is just a frame of animation for the cycle.

Working on keyframes, expressions and poses for Ivan at the moment. All is well. Except, maybe… My office is haunted by an evil spirit!!!…

…Just kidding =) he’s actually quite friendly.